


Happy Endings

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pushing Daisies, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because that’s the thing about being a young hero. The words ‘young’ and ‘hero’ are linked, inseparable. Finite. But young heroes someday grow up. And they have to find something to do, even if they can’t fight monsters and make worlds anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Endings

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. All characters, settings, and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived. _This is slightly a fusion with_ Pushing Daisies _but you do not need any knowledge of that show for this to make sense!_  
>  **Notes** : Mini bakery!AU, basically. It's a fusion with _Pushing Daisies_ , sort of. Thanks to **antistar_e** and **skellerbvvt** for the beta(s)!
> 
> ORIGINALLY POSTED [HERE](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/84159.html) on 14 November 2011.

** Happy Endings **

**  
_001._   
**  
If Peter Pan had gone home with Wendy, he would have grown up to work at the bank with Mr. Darling. He would have sat behind his desk and worn a suit and tie and remembered how to fight pirates, and that once, he knew how to fly. He had swum with mermaids. He had created a world full of monsters and magic and it was right on the other side of the growing up.

We never know what happened to Susan Pevensie after she forgot Narnia in favor of nylons and lipstick. Maybe she went to secretarial school and met a man who hated fiction. Or maybe she went on to become one of the first stewardesses for Pan-Am and spent the rest of her life traveling the world, trying to find a place she found that she remembered a little more each day as she got further and further away from being able to return.

And Harry Potter. How does someone save the world before their eighteenth birthday and go on to work in an office? Sure, he revitalized the Auror Office, but he still stamped forms and worked every day from nine to five. And there had to have been some days, sometimes, when he wanted to throw all of his little desktop knickknacks to the floor and stand on his chair and scream, _I saved you all and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now, but it can’t be paperwork!_

Because that’s the thing about being a young hero. The words ‘young’ and ‘hero’ are linked, inseparable. Finite. But young heroes someday grow up. And they have to find something to do, even if they can’t fight monsters and make worlds anymore.

**_002._**  
So after Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase and Nico Di Angelo saved the world at sixteen, they grew up. And opened a bakery.

**_003._**  
Because the thing about being a demigod was that their powers didn’t go away, even as the monsters got tired of being killed by _them_ and moved on to the younger blood. So Percy could still speak to horses and still couldn’t be injured and still controlled all of the water that came across him. And Annabeth could still see the arcs and lines and arches in things, and the gods still popped in on her from time to time to ask, _so Annabeth, I’ve been thinking about building a new bathhouse temple for myself…_

And Nico.

Well.

Nico was both the youngest and the oldest and his powers were the most mysterious. He could still raise ghosts and travel in shadows, and if zombies were to attack, Nico would still be the best person to have on your side. But when Nico turned seventeen, he started bringing people back from the dead.

And then animals, quite unexpectedly for the kung-pao shrimp he’d had in his mouth at the time.

And then, one brown autumn, plants. First touch, life. Second touch, dead again.

**_004._**  
He was visiting Percy and Annabeth the first time they saw him do it: Percy had left a trio of pears in the fruit bowl for six weeks and they’d turned black and sort of melted all over the bottom of the bowl, and Annabeth was angry that he hadn’t just eaten the pears, and Percy was angry that Annabeth hadn’t just thrown the uneaten pears away, and Nico rolled his eyes and reached into the bowl and – zzzzip – magic. Three ripe pears, pink blush on their green skins, fat and round and perfect. 

“Well,” he said. “Percy, eat them. Or Annabeth, throw them out. Just stop arguing about it.”

So Percy narrowed his eyes at Nico for a minute, wondering whether this wasn’t how Hades had trapped Persephone, and picked up a pear. He took a bite, and juice dribbled down his chin.

And Annabeth saw the through-line, with all of its arches and turns and veers. She kissed Percy’s sticky lips. And she reached over to ruffle Nico’s messy hair.

**_005._**  
They bought a rickety old weathered-wood restaurant right on the shore, not far from the turnoff on the LIE that read “Pick Your Own Strawberries!” in faded red letters. At high tide, the water came up to crash along the pylons at the end of _their_ pier, and Percy spent long days in the sun hammering together a deck and a railing so they could seat people out on the water, overlooking the Sound. Their patrons wouldn’t see the hippocampi racing in the waves or hear the unmistakable deep clanging of Tyson and the cyclopes in their forge, but Percy could. 

Annabeth stood at the front door, painting the trim, and Nico stood in the kitchen window with a bushel of bruised peaches at one hand and a glove on the other, watching Percy dip his hands into the ocean, watching the water rise to meet him and kiss his fingertips softly. Watching the smile on Percy’s face as still, years later, the water loved him.

And Nico thought _it was worth having saved the world for this_.

**_006._**  
Annabeth drew the plans for remodeling the old kitchen and bringing it up to code. She added carved columns outside the door to let wayward demigods know that their pie shop was a safe place, and designed benches that were perfect for sitting on goats’ legs. She even added a discreet trough along the back wall for Chiron and the rest of the Party Ponies, just in case they wanted a quieter night out. 

Percy watched blearily from their bed, and Nico watched silently from the shadows, as Annabeth spread out her blueprints on the kitchen table of their apartment in Queens and tapped the end of her 2H pencil on her nose while the lines measurements spread themselves out in the air in front of her, knitting together into balustrades and colonnades and space for a 4G Freezer. Her gray eyes flickered brightly as she watched the architecture assemble and dissemble itself in space.

And Percy thought _it was worth having saved the world for this_.

**_007._**  
Nico’s black hair was full of flour the first time Annabeth caught Percy kissing him. They were three days to open, and it was her turn to run outside with her dagger and kill the gelatinous amphisbaena that had slithered its way onto their pier – drawn more by the scent of baking pie than the faded smell of older half-bloods, but perfectly happy to nosh on either – and she had strings of slime in her hair when she stomped back into the kitchen just as the sun rose over the water. She could hear Apollo laughing at her Spongebob pajamas all the way from the sky.

And then she stopped short, right in the kitchen doorway, because Nico’s black curls were covered in flour and Percy’s hands were tangled up in it, and Nico’s long, stretched-out nineteen-year-old arms were wrapped around Percy’s waist like a vine clutching a trellis as it reached towards the sun. Annabeth watched as Percy sucked at Nico’s lower lip, watched as Nico sighed and tilted his jaw to press his mouth more firmly against Percy’s again.

Annabeth coughed and set her dagger down on the table with a faint clatter. Percy and Nico barely pulled away from each other, but opened their arms so that there was just enough space for a small daughter of Athena to fit between them.

Annabeth slipped into the warm space and felt their two hearts beating fast around her. She touched Nico’s sharp jaw with the tips of her fingers and Percy’s big hands landed on her waist to pull her back up against him and feel him hard against her backside. Then Annabeth lifted her face to kiss Nico’s lips – sugar and pear and the dark smoke of shadowtravel – and Percy pressed his own lips against the nape of her neck.

And Annabeth thought _it was worth having saved the world for this_.

**_008._**  
On opening day, just before dawn, Juniper and Grover brought over bushels of fallen strawberries and some tart crabapples that stayed green on the tree. Percy opened the door with a yawn and waved them inside, and Annabeth waved at them, still cross-eyed from exhaustion, from the bright blue coffeepot. Her long blonde hair was tied up in a knot held by pencils, and she wore the shirt to match Percy’s flannel pants. And then Nico stumbled out of the bedroom in his underwear, coltish legs still covered in crease marks from their sheets, and Grover and Juniper raised their eyebrows.

“Have you met our parents?” Nico grumbled. He drummed his coffee cup against the edge of the counter while they waited for the percolater to quit chugging. “You should be more worried about Annabeth being our niece.”

**_009._**  
“And cousin,” Percy said helpfully. He caught Nico around the neck and pulled him down for a sour-mouth morning kiss before hopping over to goose Annabeth’s rear end. The coffeepot distracted her and she missed his head when she went to give him a smack.

**_010._**  
“Isn’t she sort of someone’s sister, too?” Nico asked. Annabeth pressed her fingers against his, just gently, gently, while she poured coffee into his cup.

“Not ours,” Percy assured him. “But she’s your stepmom’s half-sister, kind of.”

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